Central Baptist Church will host a "Financial Peace University" course beginning Sunday, August 31. The program is the brain-child of radio host Dave Ramsey, a financial expert listened to nationally by more than 3.5 million every week.

The 13-week course which includes video classes and group discussion has changed lives all across the country. More than 500,000 families have completed the program at their workplace, church, and other locations and are working toward debt freedom and "financial peace."

To introduce the program, two Preview Nights have been scheduled for Wednesday, August 13 and Sunday, August 17 beginning promptly at 6 p.m. in Merriam Hall and will last about one hour. Once you've seen the preview, we're confident you'll want to register for the full program which lasts 13 weeks beginning August 31 from 6 - 8 p.m. The program costs $93 per family (husband-wife and children living at home or a couple engaged to be married within a year) …this is an investment of just $7 per week and pays for class materials that you will keep and continually use.

With the economy in the midst of a downturn and energy prices skyrocketing, every family is feeling financial pressure. But there are ways to eliminate mounting debt that is both efficient and biblically based. Financial Peace University is a life-changing program that teaches you how to make the right decisions with your money. You'll be empowered with the practical skills and confidence needed to achieve your financial goals and experience true financial peace. Imagine what the People of God could do for the Kingdom of God if they were debt free!

And, this program is as valuable for youth as it is for adults. For more information about "Financial Peace University" log on to their website at http://www.daveramsey.com/fpu/home/ or contact the church (523-3639) and ask for Tricia (ext. 17) or Erika (ext. 18)

Registration information will be available soon.

UPDATE as of 7/15/08
WOW! Your generous hearts were ready and willing to fill this need. All Wednesday nights are filled and taken care of. Thank you so much!

Each Wednesday Night that we join for dinner, 32 extra meals are prepared to feed the homeless women and children staying in the Contact Ministries shelter.

When we do not have a Wednesday Night Dinner, like during the month of August, the meals still need to be prepared and delivered to the shelters. In past years, individuals and groups have stepped forward to provide meals for the shelters. This summer, we again invite you to participate in this important ministry. We will not be serving Wednesday night meals during the month of August or the first week of September and need your help for those Wednesday nights. Will you, your family, your Sunday School class or small group help feed the homeless? The dates meals need to be prepared and delivered are: August 6, 13, 20, 27 and September 3.

If you need more information or want to help with this ministry, please contact Carol Volle (787-3192).

The call to give comes regularly in church life: annual stewardship drives and capital campaigns, work trips to the Gulf Coast or another hurting place, special holiday events, youth mission trips and local projects. Each giving opportunity challenges us anew to comprehend the importance of our participation, and to see past numbers and amounts to the practice of praise inherent in the act of giving.

“Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have,” says the writer of Hebrews to the community of faith. The call was personal, a reminder that our actions as Christians speak more loudly than our words and worship services. God desires our participation in the lives of others, an expectation made even more pointedly by Jesus when he tells his followers, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40, NRSV)

Of course, the ‘least of these’ don’t just live in our community anymore. As our world grows smaller, our lives intersect with so many more lives than they once did — and God’s call to share what we have encompasses more people. The people fleeing violence in Sudan, suffering from AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, reeling from devastation in Indonesia, starving in poverty in India — we are called to make a difference in these lives, too. One Great Hour of Sharing makes that possible.

Gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing support programs that help families and villages around the world build lives and communities that are healthy, safe and sustainable, changing the lives of millions of God’s children. One Great Hour of Sharing:

• helps rebuild communities ravaged by natural disasters;
• creates sustainable sources of income for rural villages;
• provides micro-credit to women to start poverty-escaping businesses;
• teaches trades and job skills;
• offers children a chance to survive past the age of 5 and go to school,
• and much more.

One Great Hour of Sharing gives each of us an opportunity to respond to God’s call: to share what we have, showing the kindness, compassion and mercy of Jesus in every part of the globe.

Doing good and sharing what we have gladdens the heart of God, who promises that those who respond, “shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.” (Isaiah 58:11, NRSV) By participating in One Great Hour of Sharing, our congregation can experience the joy of showing and sharing God’s love - offering a hand to that stranger in need, and making a difference in the lives of God’s children around the world.

Special One Great Hour of Sharing offering envelopes are available in the pews through the month of July. Our church's goal is $5,000.

Want to know more about the One Great Hour of Sharing offering? Log on to www.abc-oghs.org.

Money is a neutral commodity, a means of exchange. It is neither inherently good nor evil. But a wrong view of money can become a problem to us.

In 1 Timothy 6:9-10, Scripture warns about the dangers of a determination to get rich: "People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."

When we have a consuming desire to get rich, when we are obsessed with money so that it becomes the focus of our time and attention, then we have made it the number one priority in our lives. In that spot, it replaces everything, including God. We begin to find our security in money, not in God and in God alone.

However, when our view of God is right and our view of money is right, we will realize that money cannot buy security; money cannot purchase happiness; money cannot guarantee peace or joy or contentment. God alone can provide these essentials as we " . . . seek first his kingdom and his righteousness."

In his book, The Gift of Giving, Wayne Watts said this: "God always lovingly instructs us in the path that is in our best interest and which will bring us the greatest happiness in life. Therefore, for our good, He instructs us to put Him first in all things, and this includes how we use our money."

How do you view money? Is it at the center of your life, thereby perhaps replacing God's rightful role? And equally important, are you using the money God has given to you to advance His kingdom and His righteousness?

Money is a neutral commodity, a means of exchange. It is neither inherently good nor evil.

"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" Matthew 6:33

Can you help deliver meals to the homebound who are unable to cook for themselves? We need volunteer one or two more volunteers to fill a route on Tuesday, July 29. Meals need to be picked up at 11:30 a.m. Deliveries are usually finished by 12:30 p.m. You may want to bring someone with you so that one can drive and one can deliver the meal to the door.

Please sign up in the Welcome Center or contact the church office (office@CBCspringfield.org or 523-3639). No prior Meals on Wheels experience is necessary.

Again this month, the “In Community” small group want to team with Kumler Food Pantry help feed children and their families throughout the summer months. The small groups “First Sunday” program continues this Sunday,June 1.

Many children are out of school during the summer and may no longer have access to the breakfast and lunch programs they enjoy during their school year. Did you know nearly 13 million children in America go hungry every day? We have many in our own community. The food collected will go directly to the Kumler Food Pantry. The following items are needed:
Breakfast Items: oatmeal, boxed cereals, fruit bars, cereal bars

Lunch Items: soup, boxed macaroni and cheese, canned ravioli, fruit cups, fruit snacks (non-perishable)

Remember as you do your own shopping why not pick up a few things to bring with you this Sunday? The church’s response to the “First Sunday” program has stunned the Kumler Food Pantry workers. Michelle Tucker of the food pantry, says every item and dollar counts as it cuts down on what they need to buy at the local Aldi or other suppliers to fill their pantry. More people are being reached because of what you give.

“In Community” thanks you very much.

Blanket Sunday is May 4, 2008

A more versatile helper probably cannot be found in the list of things man uses to make life easier. It is used for warmth, as clothing, for wind protection, to carry things, to protect things, to live under, to sleep on, to share. That’s our cue.

Share your gift of $5 on or before May 4 and provide all those other things for a person who needs your sharing desperately. Just note “Blanket Sunday” on your check (payable to Central Baptist Church) or offering envelope.

The 2008 Great Rivers Region Mission Conference is scheduled for Friday, April 25 and Saturday, April 26 at Cherry Hills Baptist Church (2125 Woodside Road, Springfield).

The cost of the conference is $30 for both days for $15 for one day and meals. There is no charge if you come for Friday evening only (no meal). Childcare is available. Registration forms are available online (www.abc-grr.org/missionsconf) or on the bulletin board outside of Merriam Hall.

Friday evening speakers will be American Baptist missionary to Thailand serving in the United States, Duane Binkley and GRR Associate Minister serving Area II, Max Klinkenborg. American Baptist missionary to Costa Rica Gary Baits will be a speaker and breakout leader on Saturday.

Breakout Groups will help you understand what American Baptists are doing to make a difference with Children in Poverty, Women at Risk, Resettlement of Baptist Refugees, and mission service. Church members Dave & Carol Matheson will talk about their experience in Bluefield, Nicaragua and American Baptist missionary Gary Baits will share about his mission field in Costa Rica.

Offerings will be given for Murrow Indian Children’s Home and to scholarships for volunteer participation in the Gulf Coast Baptist Blitz Build April 27-May 17, 2008. Saturday morning there will be a time of recognition and commission of Gulf Coast workers.Participants are also invited to bring Wal-Mart gift cards for Murrow Indian Children’s Home and Campbell’s soup UPC barcodes also for Murrow.

The American Baptist Men’s Disaster Relief trailer will be available. They have many stories to tell about the work they have been doing.

Also available at the conference will the Used Book Depository. Individuals, Sunday School classes and small groups are encouraged to bring old Bibles, commentaries, study helps, adult Sunday School quarterlies and Christian reference books to the conference Friday. Church libraries, pastoral collections, collections of Bibles can be distributed around the world for use in seminaries, learning centers and educational venues. If your items look a little rough around the edges, that’s OK, they will be repaired before they are shipped.

On Friday, February 29, our American Baptist Women at Central showed us how to leap into action. After sharing a meal together, we were taught how to transform worn out bed sheets into bandages and patchwork squares that will be used by our missionaries in the mission field. Young and not so young, able bodied and moderately disabled, male and female all worked together. Those who had “deconstruction” skills took elastic, selvage edges and hems out of the sheets. Others tore them into strips or cut them into 4” squares counted into bundles of 50. Yet others sewed strips together, ironed them flat, measured them into 10 yard strips or rolled them into neat little rolls ready to be shipped to the mission field.

How many roller bandages can Central Baptists roll? The final count is not yet available, as the work continues, but including what the mission circles had already rolled before Friday night, we now have 158 roller bandages and 51 bundles of patchwork squares. Thank you to all who shared your Friday night, your heart and your hands to provide needed resources to our missionaries over seas. Candy Stivers shared with us White Cross bandages can save our missionaries over $100,000 per year.

Thanks to Mary Ellen Sharp for her efforts with the baked potato bar and Sheila Fite for coordinating the work night. Thanks to everyone who attended and assisted in making the evening such a success.

Mechanical Bandage Roller Gift

There are many ways to give the gift of time. Often we think of it when someone sets aside some of their time to do something for someone else. Bob and Deloris Smith from Stonington not only gave us the gift of their time, but in a way that helped and will continue to help us get more done with our time.

When Candy Stivers learned that we were planning to roll bandages, she also learned that Bob and Deloris Smith had a mechanical bandage roller Bob had made for their church. It makes the bandage rolling go much more quickly. She contacted Bob to see how difficult it would be to make a machine. Instead, Bob and Deloris offered to come to our event and bring their machine with them.

However, Bob did not stop there. He did come. He did bring his mechanical bandage rolling machine. But he also made a machine he has given to Central for us to use. With this machine, more bandages can be rolled in less time. We received the gift of time from Bob and Deloris not once but every time we use his gift to us.

The “In Community” small group and Central’s Children’s House Daycare are teaming up with the Postal Workers of America to help feed children and their families throughout the summer months. The small groups “First Sunday” program continues on Sunday, May 4.

Many children are out of school during the summer and may no longer have access to the breakfast and lunch programs they enjoy during their school year. Did you know nearly 13 million children in America go hungry every day? We have many in our own community. The food collected will go directly to the Kumler Food Pantry. The following is the list Kumler has provided:

Breakfast Items: oatmeal, boxed cereals, fruit bars, cereal bars

Lunch Items: soup, boxed macaroni and cheese, canned ravioli, fruit cups, fruit snacks (non-perishable)

Remember as you do your own shopping take along this list with you a pick up a few things to bring with you on Sunday, May 4. The church’s response to the “First Sunday” program has stunned the Kumler Food Pantry workers. Michelle Tucker of the food pantry, says every item and dollar counts as it cuts down on what they need to buy at the local Aldi or other suppliers to fill their pantry. More people are being reached because of what you decide to give.

“In Community” again thanks you very much.